Younger Users Spend More Daily Time on Social Networks

Facebook's user penetration is more than double that of any other social network

The US social networking market is becoming more competitive, with smaller, newer players catering to an increasingly diverse set of users. But according to a new online survey from Cowen and Company of internet users 18 and older, Facebook still leads the market by wide margin. Its share of monthly users is double that of LinkedIn, the social network with the second-highest audience penetration.

The gap in usage among other social networks such as Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat is much smaller, though the age groups these services attract vary. Cowen and Company estimates that 71% of Snapchat's audience and about 50% of Tinder and Tumblr's user base is made up of young adults 18 to 29. Users in this age group only account for 19% of people who use LinkedIn—which skews much older compared with other social networks—while Facebook and Pinterest audiences span a wider range.

Facebook is the top social network when it comes to daily time spent, with individuals averaging 42 minutes a day on the site, according to Cowen and Company. Tumblr is in second place, with users spending about 34 minutes daily, while Instagram and Pinterest audiences clock in at about 20 minutes a day. The financial service firm found a direct correlation between age and time spent—with the exception of Pinterest and Ello, young adults 18 to 29 spent more time on every social network included in the survey.

In our first-ever analysis of daily time spent on Facebook from September 2014, eMarketer projected that US adults will spend an average of 21 minutes each day on Facebook this year, accounting for one-third of the time US adults spend daily on social networks, 6.0% of time they spend with digital devices and 2.8% of average daily time spent with all media.